California has come a long way, quickly, on the subject of gay rights. However, the decision to have two gay men marry on a float during the New Year’s Day Rose Parade will really test just how much the state’s residents have accepted the overturn of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.

I support same-sex marriage, opposed Prop. 8, and even wrote a widely published opinion piece supporting the right of the court to overturn that narrow ballot victory in 2008. While in grad school at Berkeley I shared an apartment with a gay law student, who was also my best friend, and he was best man at my wedding. He died of AIDS in the mid-1990s.

Before the courts began to rule that gays were entitled to domestic partnerships and other benefits that accompany straight marriages, I argued that we ought to extend those benefits to gays. To read the equal protection clause of the constitution in a way that only applied to other groups, not gays, was a perversion of the meaning of that clause. If heterosexual partners receive tax, pension and other perks because they are married, to deny those benefits to same-sex couples would be inconsistent with the intent of equal protection.

Even with the Supreme Court ruling of last June, letting stand lower court decisions invalidating Prop. 8, the deep-seated prejudice widely extant in California, and America, against gay rights in general remains. Polls show a growing acceptance of gays in society, and that is reflected in television dramas and sitcoms that increasingly portray gays in a positive way. But those legal gains did not remove the inherent prejudice against gays that is held by a large portion of Americans.

The prejudice, if not discrimination, against gays can be compared to white attitudes toward blacks. The Warren Court in 1954 ruled against school segregation based on race but that did not change the feelings of whites even though they bit their lips and reluctantly followed the court’s mandate. White flight from public school attendance and from residential areas which were becoming mixed race instead of lily white was an obvious indicator that prejudice remained although legal discrimination was gone.

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When Aubrey Loots and Danny Leclair take their marriage vows on Colorado Boulevard on New Year’s Day, what will be the reaction of the half-million viewers along the way?

That question can be answered by a look back at the Prop. 8 election campaign four years ago. Rarely has a ballot initiative brought out such passion, on both sides. In my neighborhood, homeowners who rarely post signs for candidates put up signs about Prop. 8, for and against. The final tally statewide showed the public was almost equally divided, with a slim lead for the anti-gay marriage side.

In the heat of the campaign San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom uttered a statement in support of gay marriage that still resounds: “It’s going to happen, whether you like it or not.” While San Francisco’s gay community roared their approval of his stand, those supporting Prop. 8 turned it into a very effective pro-8 campaign commercial.

Newsom trashed the anti-gay portion of the public with that speech and it may well have been the factor that caused the passage of Prop. 8. It certainly didn’t win over anyone who was indecisive on the ballot measure.

Placing two grooms-to-be on a wedding cake in the midst of the Rose Parade is akin to another “whether you like it or not.” It may make some gays feel good, but at what cost? It’s another “in your face” act that ought not to take place. It will only harden attitudes in opposition to gays.

While they have won many legal rights, they need to win the hearts and minds of straights, too. A wedding on Colorado Boulevard won’t do that.

Ralph E. Shaffer is a professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly Pomona.